UPPER GWYNEDD >>> The 2017 budget for Upper Gwynedd Township has been approved, and includes a 10 percent increase in sewer rates and a 26 percent increase in the township’s fire tax.

Both increases are meant to start saving for long-term expenses anticipated in future years, according to Township Manager Len Perrone.

“The whole idea for the fire tax increase is us wanting the fire company to establish a real, viable depreciation fund for their equipment,” he said. “Nothing that the fire company buys is cheap. The costs of their trucks, equipment, and other things, are just astounding.”

The board considered two options to raise revenues, and settled on the smaller: increasing fire fund millage from the previous 0.110 mills — a level held steady since 1997 — by 0.029 mills would be a $4.79 annual expense for the average taxpayer, and produce roughly $48,500 per year. An increase of 0.069 mills would cost $11.39 per year and raise $115,100 per year. The smaller increase, of 0.029 mills, was approved unanimously by the commissioners Monday night, and will produce an added $4.79 on the tax bill of a resident at the average residential real estate assessed value of $168,543.

“It’s really important that they have money built into their cash flow, that helps to sustain a depreciation fund for the purchases of these pieces of equipment,” Perrone said.

Over two months of budget talks, the commissioners and staff were able to cut an initial deficit of $1.3 million down to zero by deferring or eliminating certain items, scaling back others, and approving a transfer of $235,000 from township reserves to cover one-time expenses planned in 2017. The township’s homestead exemption, which allows residents to deduct from the assessed values of their properties when calculating township taxes, is maintained at $30,000 next year.

“Many of the difficult choices were made in a successful effort to develop a budget which held the line on taxes without a general purpose tax increase,” said commissioners President Ken Kroberger in a township press release.

“The increase in sewer rates has nothing to do with our diversion project. It has to do with existing equipment, and us needing to build up a depreciation fund for all the pumps and motors and controls, and everything we have at the plant now,” Perrone said.

The annual bill increase will likely appear to most customers as an increase of $18.50 in each of the two biannual bills they receive, and the average customer’s bill will increase to $407 per year, up from $370 in prior years. The sewer fund currently has roughly $3 million in reserves, and staff project long-term expenses of roughly $9 million over the next 15 years — thus the increase.

“We’re trying to make sure that all parts of our budget are self-sustaining,” Perrone said.

The diversion project will be high on the township’s to-do list in 2017, according to the manager: Just over $1 million has been budgeted for planning and engineering of that project in the coming year.

“We hope to have design work done, and we’re working with a lot of different regulatory agencies to get our permitting,” he said.

“We won’t see any construction on that next year, but we should get into the real meat of the engineering, design, and permitting phases,” Perrone said.

The 2017 budget also allocates $520,000 in state grant money toward paving of local roads, and Perrone said staff already have a draft list of roads to tackle next year, and will updated it based on potholes and other damage that appears when winter weather hits.

“We have a very aggressive road repaving list, but so much can change during the winter. All residents who live on streets that will be paved or overlaid will all get advance notice,” he said.

“If the price is what we think it should be, we’ll commit,” Perrone said.

Other projects funded in the 2017 budget include two new police patrol cars, two new trucks for the township Public Works department, continued work on stormwater management projects, and upgrades to the administration building’s public meeting room. Upper Gwynedd’s 2017 budget can be viewed at the township building, 1 Parkside Place, or online at www.UpperGwynedd.org.